Damn Dirty Skrulls: What We Know Now 6

Initially announced without the “S.I. Tie-in” designation, Ms. Marvel #27
post-solicitation had the Secret Invasion: Infiltration banner added to
it before hitting the stands. The story so far had Ms. Marvel
encountering a Skrull dupe of herself, with her S.H.I.E.L.D. team
Operation: Lightning Storm (not “Lighting Storm” as it says in the
recap) eventually subduing the dupe and killing an X-Men Super Skrull.
This dupe, at the end of the previous issue, revealed to Ms. Marvel
that her boyfriend William Wagner was in fact a Kree agent working to
stem the tide of invasion. After a short wild goose chase trying to
locate Wagner, Carol and her team return to their mini-carrier to
interrogate the Skrull again. However, once out of her containment
field, the Skrull claims Earth belongs to them, says the ubiquitous “He
loves you,” and self-destructs, sending the team and their S.H.I.E.L.D.
compatriots careening to the ground. Rick Sheridan, the Sleepwalker’s
human host, was grievously injured, but managed to survive.
Unfortunately, several agents and civilians were not so lucky. The
issue closed out with a “tender moment” (see: Ms. Marvel throwing
herself a pity party, then sleeping with Simon Williams aka Wonder
Man). They then wake up to a priority alert that a Skrull ship has
crash landed in the Savage Land, and it takes us to just moments before
the start of Secret Invasion #1. #28 of Carol’s own series will also be tying in, for the first time “officially.”

New Avengers #41 replayed and expanded on a bit of the fight from SI #1,
and showed Spider-Man getting thrown into the jungle by the interfering
T-Rex. Ka-Zar, Shanna, and their clan, whom Spidey assumes are all
Skrulls, immediately greet him. After a humorous give and take, Shanna
tells their story, in the form of a flashback sequence. We learn
through this that the group the New Avengers encountered in their first
mission as a team was not in fact a rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. group. In fact,
they were a large group of Skrulls, mining Vibranium, the rare
absorbent metal in the Marvel Universe. When we get back to the
present, Spidey is still unsure as to how much he can trust this Ka-Zar
and Shanna that stand before him. A new player enters the game on the
final page as the Captain America from the Skrull ship butts into the
conversation. Is he the real Steve Rogers, as Mockingbird supposed in SI #1? Well, seeing as his story is being told in New Avengers,
and not in the main mini-series, I’d say it’s unlikely. Still, a
difficult fight is in store for ‘ole Web-head next issue, physically
and emotionally.

Secret Invasion #3 Jarvis is a Skrull! Holy s-, oh wait, we knew
that. The big deal here is our confirmation that Skrull Queen Veranke
is indeed Spider-Woman. As for Tony? I don’t buy that for a second. I
totally believe that Spider-Queen is playing psychological games here;
she’s using the info that she’s obtained as Spider-Woman and her own
profile of Stark to prey on his own self-doubts in his weakened state.
I don’t believe that Bendis and Marvel would waste all of the hard
choices and sterling character work that went into Stark these past
couple of years on this. We’ll also note that Spider-Queen won a very
quick fight with Echo, though Echo’s fate is ambiguous (considering
that cracking sound effect when she landed; that sound’s never good).
Perhaps Echo’s condition was left unresolved in case Spider-Queen
needed to swipe (no pun intended) her face later.

The items that turn out to be more important than Skrull infiltration
this time are the events that either follow up on earlier incidents or
happen on the streets of New York. For example, we finally got our
answer as to where the Helicarrier landed: the Bermuda Triangle. Back
in NYC, the Young Avengers and the Initiative trainees tangle with the
invading Skrulls, resulting in the death of young Proton and the most
recent destruction of the Vision. Captain Marvel has also apparently
kicked the collective asses of the Thunderbolts since the first issue,
but Norman (in a four-alarm potential Skrull alert moment) just wants
to talk. If Norman is a Skrull, how would that play with his recent monologues and OMD?

Young X-Men #3: Here’s Troy’s theory. Cyclops is a Skrull in Young
X-Men, but only Young X-Men. How’s that? Well, in all of the other
interactions that Cyclops has had with the revamped teams, Cyclops has
either been around people that he’s known for some time (X-Force) or
has been in the presence of Emma. Cyclops in Young X-Men isn’t
alongside Emma, but also is only in the presence of young characters
who have not known him nearly as long (and still question his
attitude). He’s training them at a remote base (again, without Emma),
and he’s sending them immediately on killing missions (something that’s
supposedly reserved for X-Force). This would be an interesting way of
having a Skrull mess with the X-Men without hurting any of the
character work that Carey and Brubaker have done with Cyclops in the
past two years. Whatta ya’ think of that one, kids?

That’s all for this time. Debate, discuss, or deny your Skrulliness below, or click here to discuss it on our messageboards.